Ziannah
by iamtheknight
Summary: Nothing good ever starts with time travel. Picard is visited by a strange girl in the night, claiming to be a friend from the future. Her instructions send them on a path no one expects: revealing secrets, nightmares, meeting new species, and traveling planes of existence. This story forgoes the events of Journey's End and the destruction of Enterprise D.


Captain Jean-Luc Picard was asleep, and comfortably so. His mind was empty, deep in dreamless sleep. It had been several days since he'd had more than a few hours, his mind occupied with possible complications of a mission that never came to pass. The mission was finished and the _USS_ _Enterprise_ had nothing more complicated scheduled than a rendezvous with the _USS Theodore_ to pick up four new Academy graduates, including Ensign Wesley Crusher. Afterwards they would move on to Alcan IV, where the crew, and himself, would be allowed shore leave on the planet's legendary beaches and tourist-type resorts.

"Captain?" he shifted slightly, regretfully, at the disturbance. He chose to ignore it; maybe he hadn't heard anything at all. Maybe. "Captain. You must wake up now. I apologize but I must speak with you." His eyes cracked open and lights he was sure he had turned off immediately blinded him. There was a shape looming above him, its form indeterminate and dark to his sleep blurred vision. He shot up in bed, blinking furiously. It was a girl. He knew his crew, he even knew the children. She was not a member of the ship's complement. She looked horrifically tired, leaning heavily on the edge of his couch. Her incredibly long, light brown hair brushed the ground in a braid that was falling apart. One of her eyes was bruised, the other blood shot with exhaustion, and both were ringed with old, smudged black eyeliner. A barely healed, deep cut ran from the corner of the bruised eye to her jaw line. She wore a stained and ripped yellow robe, which still glittered in some places with previous regality. Although otherwise humanoid in appearance, she had two giant, black-feathered wings growing from her back. But the feathers were missing in some places and one was broken at the bottom. Looking at her, she appeared defenseless, clearly not a threat. But he knew better than to underestimate an alien. Q looked humanoid also.

"Security to my quarters," he said urgently. No response. She smiled weakly and swayed slightly.

"They cannot hear you Captain," she replied. Her voice was husky. "But I am not a threat. To anyone. At least not anymore." As if to demonstrate, her knees buckled and she fell to the floor. He sprang out of bed reflexively and helped her onto the couch. She sat, breathing deeply, very pale. He wondered for a moment if she had lost consciousness before her one good eye fluttered open.

"Let me call a doctor," he told her, rather than asked. But she shook her head.

"No no Captain. It is too late for me now… uh, well as melodramatic as that sounds. I'm very old Captain," he looked at her quizzically. She couldn't be more than sixteen. As if reading his mind she answered, "I don't look it but I can feel it. My friends are gone, my family is gone, and the empire is in the hands of very capable Ziannahs. I am not needed on this plane any more. But that is not why I'm here." He sat opposite her.

"Picard to Sickbay," he tried. Again there was no response.

"Contrary to my appearance Captain I will be fine. I will simply pass from this plane to the Every Plane and that is not a particularly sad fate." Her eyes fluttered slightly, but she remained conscious. He wondered if her failing health affected her mind. Every Plane? "But uh… you don't know me yet. Well, trust me in the future this will seem far more sad." She smiled grimly at her own morbid joke.

"Time travel?" he asked, heart sinking. Nothing good ever came from time travel. She nodded and grimaced, going sheet white. She rested her head gingerly on the back of the couch.

"Now, I don't have much time. My grip on this plane is already weakening. "You don't know me _yet_ but you will. We will meet, and shortly. This is very very important Captain. When we meet, you will know me but I will not know you yet. Time travel is fun isn't it? It is incredibly, galaxy-endingly important that you never ever tell me that we've had this encounter. We will meet many times, I now consider you a friend. I will admit it's slightly unnerving, the last time we meet you have no idea who I am," her voice faded slightly but returned with force. "Many years after your death there will be a war, a war across times and parallel universes and physical planes. A war between us time travelers and one man with immeasurable power. We won, but not before he escaped us once and did horrible damage to the timeline starting in Earth's World War I. He is dead, wiped from every universe and all time, but we've had to go meticulously back through history, repairing his damage. I… I fucked up and ended up like this. It was my fault, but I also know that it is my time. This is the last repair I have to make. This will put history back on path again. What is the star date Captain?"

"41158.3," he answered, realizing that this girl was going to die in front of him.

"Good, good. I thought I might have been off in this dumbass state. You will pick up four new ensigns soon from the Academy. Do not change current speed and heading but you _must_ proceed from there in _exactly_ 56 minutes at heading 84 by 247 by 38 at warp six. It is imperative that you do this Captain, or the Federation will fall to the Borg." Captain Picard breathed in sharply. "If you do this everything will be alright again. If you do this, we'll have won," her voice was very faint. At the completion of her message, her strength was fading rapidly. She was encased in a bright golden glow and her form began to lose shape. "Captain, when we meet, when we do become friends, know I lived a long life. A happy life. Don't picture me in this state, picture me as I am when we meet and remember that." She vanished with the last word and the golden glow faded out slowly after her. The lights went out and he was sitting in the chair, alone in the dark.


End file.
